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state of play:
2005
diesel
v70
135k miles
second owner
full service history
bells and whistekes
Leather interior
bike rack
roof bars
perfect family car for us
drive 350 miles a week
one kid plus baby on the way
family all over country
like outdoor stuff etc
...........
connundrum time
lots of little issues developing costing 100 quidish a time to repair
just has new brakes all round - resulted in fault code for brake failure.
new hand brake cable
new door release cable
random abs fault keeps popping up
steering angle sensor maybe dodgy
Whooshing sound that could be a split hose or intercooler fault
so this week it’s going in for fault codes reading and a diagnosis on all issues. Need the hive mind to help decide on what it is “worth”? Do I pay for all repairs and soldier on? What else could crop up in the next 14 months (need it to last up be financially secure)?
It’s also going in for two new tyres at £210 on Friday
What should I do - stick or twist?
VOLVO FOR SALE
you are doing fairly high mileage so any car you get will devalue faster than the volvo is costing you in repairs. So i say stick with the volvo and try to save a bit on top that either covers repairs OR builds a deposit for your next car.
My brother had a V40 (IIRC) and decided to sell when it hit 10 years old as all the little repair costs started to add up FWIW.
random Abs faultnis likelynto be dry solder joints on the pcb. I had this on my xc90 and fixed it in january (dremel, reflow the main power joints, reseal with silicone). This fixed it, but then two months later the aux tensioner failed, taking out the belt, cambelt and engine =scrap xc90 and new (13 plate) V40 to replace.
Get a tree to fall on it. Insurance claim, then replace it with a XC90.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/volvo-for-sale-3/
I love the new XC90 (jeebuz I am middle aged). Never thought I would go for Volvos but I much prefer my current (old model XC60) to my old A6 Avant 3.0 turbo diesel so am considering changing to the XC90 when the lease deal ends.
Just been through this with the Galaxy, and bought a V70 to replace...
Our Galaxy was 160k, needed new suspension parts, new brakes, orginal clutch was showing signs of going, three of four glow plugs had gone, original DPF and EGR, timing belt and major service due, dashboard had occasional 'hiccups' on the display, both front and rear screen heaters had broken, central locking had packed up on one door etc. I had done 95k miles in just under 4 years, and it had only cost £7k. The previous year had not cost too much - it felt like it was all about to fall on us... I *could* have thrown the £2-3k at it, but decided with the miles I did (25k a year) and the fact that work pays half my miles at 45p we should can it and buy a £8k new wagon with less than half the miles - in fact we spent just shy of £9k on the V70. As I drove the Galaxy in for it to trade in for £1200, the emissions light came on...phew,
As ever, how much compared to a new wagon?
Spending even £1-2k on a older car that keeps going another year is great value, and I have done it a few times.
Buying a new car costs a lot - and there is still no guarantee of reliability or lower costs.
That said, I am loving our V70...
I have an S40 and I’m 24.. I got mine 59 plate 66k miles and had to regas the aircon twice it has a leak I need to sort it, fit a new alternator, get the srs airbag module sent away for repair, fit a new boot wiring loom, fit a new battery in the first 2 months of owning it. Seems to be fine now.. what i’m saying is unless you get a showroom fresh car you’ll probably have issues with it too maybe even worse ones than what you have now.
All your faults so far are to be expected, cables wear out and break, consider them consumables, no different to bike cables in a way..
again abs faults are also a common thing on any vehicle, at any age or mileage.
a dodgy sensor, again common fault, we had steering angle sensors fail on 17plate trucks when I worked at Scania
As for the turbo whoosh, you can leave that, let it develop worst case is you start to experience a bit of a loss of power. My turbo makes a moaning noise, but it works and hasn’t sounded any worse over the 5k miles I’ve done since getting it so it’ll be alright..
If the car itself is in good condition and you like driving it and meets your needs, if it’s battered, full of dog hair and childrens vomit maybe get shut..
When I worked as a bus mechanic, some vehicles in the fleet would have fault after fault and they would only be a few years old other vehicles would be over ten years old and will have had nothing done to them besides servicing.
Hmmm seems that you lot are in two minds also 😱
any more thoughts?
I changed two years ago.
Wish I hadn't. New to me, 4 years old when I got it, VW has turned in the last twelve months into a money pit of unscheduled repairs.
To the extent that I'm considering either a brand new lease car or buying something much older and more mechanical that I can do a degree of self repair with and/or run on a more bangernomics model.
I think I've been pretty unlucky on this one but newer is no guarantee to of reliability.
If all else is sound and it's the right side of £500 I'd be seriously considering a stick .
I think what i was trying to say was... The problem is if you use spare cash or debt to upgrade you can still be saddled with sodding great repair bills plus your cost of change.
Having spent a long time looking for the perfect estate car, I think you’ll be disappointed by a lot of newer offerings - unless you can stomach owning an SUV. So even if you wanted to change you might not find a decent option.
For me, that car doesn’t owe you anything, and is basically worthless to anyone else (who will assume it’s a money pit with multiple hidden issues). If you can spend ~£1000 on it now to fix all the niggles and get it running well, it’ll very likely last at least another year. And £1000/yr for motoring is nothing.
Having spent a long time looking for the perfect estate car, I think you’ll be disappointed by a lot of newer offerings – unless you can stomach owning an SUV. So even if you wanted to change you might not find a decent option.
Yep. V70s are marvellous. Went from an excellent RWD turbo 9 series to 4WD turbo V70s and they were sublime. The only reason we changed to a XC90 was the growing children and occasional end to transport more people, so the extra seats won the day. Otherwise. I'd have been back looking at big engined V70s again.
I’d say stick. As it stands it’s probably worth less than £2k. I bought my newer V70 at 150,000 with a fsh and a new MoT three years ago for just under £2k. It’s now on 192000 having just completed a 3000 mile road trip to France and back.
What you are replacing are consumable parts. With young kids you won’t be worried about trashing the interior.
Yours sounds like the V70 I’d go looking for if mine died tomorrow
I suppose the main question is what is the “stick” vs “twist” £££££?
Your steering angle sensor and the abs warning may be linked. The battery on mine kept going flat, I changed the battery and it continued draining. It turned out the steering sensor needed resetting, as it was out it activated the abs which drained the battery.
I would never have found the fault on my own but I was lucky to find a good Indy specialist locally
As I said above, most of what you are replacing are service items. Your car will see many more miles yet. I replaced all four discs and pads shortly before heading to France a couple of weeks ago with the odometer kicking 190,000. I still think it was a worthwhile investment
Mcmoonter you are right i think, i'm not gonna get a sure fire winner car of equal quality for the £1kish i will need to shell out so stick it is unless the garage appointment on Thursday throws up any huge curveballs.
Faults that are apparent:
steering wheel not in line when going straight
Random ABS fault warning code
Knock from back end
Whooshing noise from turbo which mechanic thought was a split hose (could be) volvo specialist recons an intercooler issue??
Sticky rear wiper unless window is totally wet (i.e. when i use the rear washer)
and it EATS headlight dipped bulbs (3-4 per year per side??
needs 2 tyres but that was totally my fault!!
Steering wheel position will definitely throw up the abs code if it’s that far out.
A used rear wiper motor replacement is an easy enough diy job. I changed mine which had a similar problem. Just be supe careful as the drive spindle goes through the rear screen.
Knock at the rear could be an exhaust rubber. Mine needed a new rear anti roll bar as the bushes were shot. It’s quite a big job as you have to take the exhaust off and disconnect the suspension on both sides to fit it. The bushes come bonded to the anti roll bar,
The whoosh sounds more like a hose than an inter cooler. The latter is a pain as you have to take out the radiator, intercooler and AC condenser together.
If you are near Cowdenbeath I could put you in touch my my Indy specialist. He knows V70s inside out
Cheers for that but in Sheffield. Gonna be using Volvo Specialist Repairs P W Auto's, Unit B /Marsdens Buildings/Myers Gr La, Sheffield S6 5JG
It is sounding expensive - but less so than a new car...
Not sure on cost Matt-40 quod for the diagnostic check and 210 for the tyres are a definite. I think £1k is the cut off but I would get no car for that cash
Indeed - what would you spend on a newer one? £3k? £5k? £10k?
Far more than I have available. Ideally need this to keep going until end of 2019
Had the exact same car up until a few months ago - 05 V70 - assume yours is the D5. We bought it with 111k in 2010 in response to the arrival of children and dogs and it was brilliant at carting us around. Quite a few little niggles - it seemed to eat tyres and lightbulbs like others have said. Went through a period of problems with the handbrake and had to get the boot struts replaced. Mostly smaller stuff that added up but not as much as the depreciation on a newer car. I decided to run it until something bigger failed and it became uneconomic to repair. That happened start of June on the way back from Wales when the number 5 injector went with 186k on the clock. Diagnosis from the Indy was not just the injector but also the ECU and soot filter. Injectors alone are around £300 (can get refurbished ones, but the feedback doesn't seem great) and really it makes more sense to replace all 5 so that was £1500 before the labour, let alone the ECU. In some ways I'm glad it was such a major item as it made the decision to let it go easier. We stuck it on ebay and replaced with a newer V70.
With only 135k on the clock you ought to be good for at least another 50k, so I would stomach the repairs. Watch out for the message 'Engine System Service Required' - that is a sign of problems with injectors (in my experience), then it's probably time to twist.
Brilliant advice thank you
How much did you get on eBay btw?
I run a 2.4 non turbo petrol V70 for the very reason that it's heavy on fuel but effectively bullet proof. Currently on 170k miles.
My approach is that it's only effectively rust that kills cars - anything mechanical can be sorted but I spanner my own cars so don't have labour charges.
The rear wiper motor can be opened up and serviced easily - it just needs a torx to remove the back cover, push the wiper arm shaft out, clean with the shaft with scotchbrite to remove the rust and repack with grease.
Thanks for that 👍🏼😀
When you rebuild the wiper motor - make sure there is no grease on the electrical contact area as this causes slow running/random stopping. New units are ~£130 from Eurocarparts so don't bother with 2nd hand but they are a doddle to repair.
The abs issue could be a failed abs reluctor ring. Both my fronts have been done. They crack and open up a little at speed causing the 'check brake' message to appear. It goes off when the car is switched off but comes back on again next time on the motorway/at speed.
The rings are a few quid off eBay and take an hour or so to do per side.
Volvos are big heavy complex cars but at least they were designed well and are nice to work on. They are also good in that there is effectively a rebuild kit or parts availablity for pretty much everything on the car. Even the radio knobs have a factory replace kit for £4!
Re rear knocking - the silencer mount rusts and snaps off leaving the heavy unit to bang about. Volvo do a replacement hanger kit for ~£20 that clamps on (the silencer/exhaust system is stainless so don't replace it)
Mine ate bulbs but I was using the cheap £5 bulb packs from Asda/Tesco, replaced with decent/expensive long life normal style branded bulbs and been fine since.
I run an XC90 which is currently on 240k miles. The p2 generation of volvos are very well built. I also do all the work on mine myself so that does save quite a bit. It is worth investing in VIDA and a DICE unit which is the Volvo diagnostics software and interface as it can help solve lots of these problems. I paid £100 ish for mine and it soon pays for its self.
its also worth going on volvoforums.co.uk as its a mine of information on these cars.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4SQEC3vqvRGZPNvp8
Got 360 on ebay for it which I can't complain about given that webuyanycar offered 375 as a runner. Indy says they tend to get bought by Eastern Europeans and taken abroad where the labour is cheaper. Sold mine to a Lithuanian guy.
Mine was the basic model BTW - fabric seats and no bells 'n whistles. Kids had done good job of trashing the inside of it, coins in the CD player etc etc. They've grown up a bit now so the new one has the toys (more to go wrong though)..
New car = lower running costs, higher overall cost of ownership (loan/lease +depreciation).
Older car = higher running costs and lower overall cost of ownership
At 350 miles per week you are going to lose more on a new car. But you are also driving an older car quite hard, so it's difficult to specify.
Personally have a Honda Civic at 171k miles, cost me £3k to buy and easily that in servicing and repairs over the past 6 years of ownership. Currently needs the aircon addressing as a regas didn't work and has a brake binding/dragging noise coming but no problems with the brakes as far as I can tell. Overall I reckon it's been a pretty cheap car to own, not without problems but it works well and has done 90k miles with me now.
Re clamp - there is a Volvo one for that. Do a search on eBay the are a few Volvo dealers that sell genuine Volvo parts - the silencer bracket is a U-bolt style clamp, the one you need is a 'ovalised' shaped clamp. It's ~£20
Edited to add
Wow 11 quid 😀
do you reckon that’s the source of my knocking??
If yours is broken/missing then it needs replacing. Check the silencer bracket/mount as well.
Weird as it failed the mot 29th may with”exhaust system insecure near side rear”
went in for repair/welding and passed on 1st June
^exactly why I repair/service my own cars.
It’s at the garage now ..... will post results
Back from the mechanic:
Fault codes read:
No comms form ABS sensor - needs new ABS control unit
Steering angle sensor buggered
Top engine mount broken off
Both lower arms on front worn and need replacing
Track rod ends need doing
Exhaust hanger needs welding
WWSTW do?
Bump
Did he give you a price?
And if you got billed for welding up the exhaust I'd be having a word with the mot place!
400 Ish for the mechanical stuff and up to 400 for the electrics with NO guarantee 😢
ABS - don't know
Steering angle sensor - I think this a fairly pricey part
Top engine mount - Lemforder OEM from eurocarparts (I've done mine IIRC £50)
Lower wishbones - genuine Volvo only (don't skimp on these) £100 per side plus non reusable bolts from Volvo.
Track rod ends - Lemforder (Volvo OEM) from Eurocarparts ~£30 each
Exhaust probably needs the hanger replacing as mentioned previously (unless it tore a hole like mine did)
The mechanical items listed are consumables - the electrical stuff isn't but also isn't unheard of for these P2 Volvos.
Personally I'd stick with it if you haven't had any fuelling/injector issues and the car is rust free underneath - especially around the inside of the front suspension turrets
www.breakeryard.co.uk
these big luxo barges are so common you should b able to get the ABS and SAS from there .
The glitch is are they coded items ?
If they are then you may be into main stealer prices so add £600 to the parts bill
It may be time to ebay it . . . sorry
There is a place listed by Honest John that can refurb the electronic part of your ABS unit especially Bosch units. Much cheaper than replacement. The mechanics of the unit are probably fine.
About £150 to rebuild it with new brake pressure sensor.
I'm really attached to my V70 but if I was looking at that bill I think i'd be looking to replace it. With another V70 of course...
I had a 2002 V70 d5, had spent alot on it, usual bushes , new clutch and then the airbag light came on, which I knew would be an MOT fail. Volvo were quoting big prices to fix and when the fuel pump started playing up I decided to sell for spares or repairs on eBay. My phone was ringing off the hook and it sold very quick for far higher than scrap prices... which shows that is was worth fixing for alot of people. Looking on the gov.uk mot history check it seems that it is still going strong somewhere. I really regret selling it, comfiest most practical estate I have ever had. The d5 engine is very refined compared to many modern 4 bangers too. I thought the wooshing noise mine made (and the C30 d5 that replaced it) was normal . If it in good condition otherwise I'd fix, they don't make them the same anymore.
Fizik you share my sentiments
The sas on the xc90 isn’t coded but they did change the around the 2005 model year and it became part of the clock spring. This is actually straight forward to replace nad the longest part is leaving the battery disconnected before removing it.
I would pay that - £800-1k is still a lot, lot les than new car. Sounds like you will then get another year or two from it - so cheaper motoring...
Need to investigate sending the module off. I agree on the cost but need a guarantee on the abs module tbh
£210 on 2 tyres this AM!!
Presumably "!!" because you were surprised how cheap they were? 😉
so the cost is £550 for:
top engine mount
lower wishbones (volvo ones)
track rod end
exhaust welding
reset steering wheel to centre
new key body
Going to run it for a bit after and see if the codes reappear, if so then look at chopping it in!
I was quoted £500 for a new key coded to the car from Volvo so that sounds cheap to me
BBA reman also do a ABS refirb as well so worth enquiring
Singletrackmind has a pair of wishbones in his garage , and he doesnt own a V70 anymore
Bet you could fill the busted top engine mount with silicone sealant . I did , worked a treat .
OP, if it's a 185bhp V70 and you do decide to chop in it, give me a shout. Like some of the others above, I can't think of a car that would replace my V70 with that best suits my needs other than another one.
So I have the car back £550 later
all mechanical stuff done 😀
no codes come up YET 😀